Posts in Category: waterfall
1/8/2012: Webhanette Falls, in Ice
The Webhanette River flows between Wells and Moody Beach Maine and forms the Webhannet Marshes behind the dunes of Wells Beach. On its way down to the sea it flows over some rocky ledges. Waterfalls of any size in Southern Maine are few enough so that the Town of Wells has created a little park around the falls, not, honestly, much visited. It is a quiet spot just of busy RT 1, on a loop of road that has been bypassed by newer construction, and worth a look most seasons. Here it is in its winter persona, minus, due to our strange winter so far, the usual solid coating of snow that generally buries the rock and the ice itself…so I guess it is a somewhat unusual view.
I like the way the flowing water has frozen…the interesting shapes and textures…and the way the strongest flow has remained free.
Canon SX40HS in Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1) 120mm equivalent field of view, f4.5 @ 1/160th @ ISO 100. 2) and 3) 410mm equivalent, f5 @ 1/160th @ ISO 125 and 160.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
And for the Sunday thought: Many places in the world, and even in Maine, no one would even notice Webhanette Falls. It is too small, too tame, too homely. But when you live on a coastal plain, hundreds of miles from real mountains (where in fact any decently high hill is called a mountain) any waterfall is a treat…a reminder of the beauty and the power of falling water. And what is it about waterfalls anyway? Why do we humans, pretty much universally, find them awe-inspiring…why do we drive and hike out of our way to see them? We paint them, we take pictures of them. We are irresistibly and undeniably drawn. Why did the town of Wells, when the new Rt. 1 was constructed, preserve this little park around this vest pocket water fall?
I can ask the questions but I can’t answer them. All I know is that waterfalls make me glad…a bit giddy in fact. They lift my spirit, fill my soul with wonder. They make me happy. There is a sense of play about them…from the smallest to the most majestic that speaks, always…maybe in a whisper at Webhanette and a roar at Niagara…but speaks always to the place in me that feels closest to the creator.
12/22/2011: Winter and Water, Emmons Preserve
Winter is coming late to southern Maine this year. The ground is still bare here a few days before Christmas. We have had temperatures in the single digits at dawn this week…but the days warmed into the mid 30s. Not your grandfather’s December at all. (Though we still have time. They are predicting a few inches tonight into Friday. We shall see. Almost 40 degrees on Christmas??).
Anyway, I took a drive out to Emmons Preserve, figuring the cold would have at least created some ice sculpture and lace along the Batson River where it tumbles down over the ledges there. And it had. Except for the first shot, which had enough sun on it to light the moss within the shell of ice, I was shooting at ISO 800 along the late-afternoon shadowed rapids. Quality like this at high ISOs was simply not possible until this latest generation of super=zoom Point & Shoots.
Canon SX40HS in Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1) 147mm equivalent field of view, f4.5 @ 1/80th @ ISO 250. 2) 462mm equivalent, f5 @ 1/60th @ ISO 800. 3) 190mm equivalent, f4.5 @ 1/80th @ ISO 800.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
10/9/2011: The year there was no fall, Kennebunk ME
Happy Columbus Day Weekend Sunday!
Columbus Day weekend is, traditionally, the height of the fall foliage season in Maine and New England. It is impossible to find accommodations unless you reserve well in advance. I don’t know how other areas of New England are faring this year, but it is pretty dull season in Maine so far. We have had no hard frost, and the trees are hanging on to their green. Only uniquely exposed trees have turned. This scene, my favorite place for fall foliage shots, is a mere shadow of its normal self a year ago, two years ago, three years ago…within my memory. Maybe the leaves will still turn…just late…but the most exposed trees have already started dropping leaves. They just turned brown and fell. Our yard, well shaded by maples, is littered with brown leaves. Not a good sign.
This image was taken using the Vivid mode on the Canon SX40IS…the saturation is over the top for most scenes, but here it brings out every last bit of fall color. For comparison, here is the scene in normal program mode from this year and an HDR shot from last year on 10/3/2010.
Keep in mind that the shot on the left is pretty much what the eye sees this year, and the shot on the right was a week earlier last year.
Folks who reserved early and came north for the foliage show this Columbus Day are going to underwhelmed.
Canon SX40is at 24mm equivalent field of view. Main shot, f4 @ 1/500 @ ISO 100. Vivid mode. Comparison shot f4 @ 1/800th @ ISO 160. Program. Last year’s shot with Canon SX20is at 28mm equivalent.
All processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness. Not much processing at all on the Vivid mode shot.
And for the Sunday thought: The seasons come and the seasons go, without fail, but how they come and how they go, and the shape of the actual days that make them, well, that is anything but certain. We make our plans, but ultimately we can not know, beyond the most general outlines, what will come. No two falls are the same. And this is good. It teaches us that no matter what comes, it is up to us how we respond. A photographer, a nature photographer, is bound to look for the beauty in every season and to make the most of it. And isn’t that the best course for every human being? If we meet every day, in every season, with gratitude and appreciation, then, though the seasons are different year to year, each comes as a blessing, with its own unique beauty…and while we may remember and compare, we will live without regrets. Even if we did reserve a motel room in Maine for Columbus Day Weekend 🙂
6/20/2011: Wet Wood with Stream
On the way back from a very wet hike up South Bubble in Acadia National Park, we stopped at the Bubble Pond parking because I wanted a picture of a brook. This is Bubble Brook as it leaves the pond begins its run down to Eagle Lake. I love the wet woodland, the colors of the decaying leaves and the green foliage, and textures of bark and stone, and the curve of the stream, the parallel placement of the diagonal downed tree, the bow of the pine on the right, the roughness of the birch bark on the left, etc. etc. There is a lot going on in this image, but I think it is held firmly together by the sweep of the water, and well anchored by the base of wet stone and last years oak leaves. It is another image I could see printed, framed, and hanging on my wall.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 23mm equivalent field of view, f3.4 @ 1/30th @ ISO 200. Program with Active D-Lighting and Vivid Image Optimization.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
By the way. My morning posts are offset in time this week as I am on the west coast 
4/2/2011: Pool Panorama, Emmons Preserve
For Scenery on Saturday, another panorama from Emmons Preserve in Kennebunkport Maine…this time a somewhat more conventional one. A sweep of the middle pool along the main run of the Baston River through the preserve. With no leaves on the trees the light actually reaches the water in early spring. This is a very different place during summer. Because of the level of detail here, this will benefit from a larger view. Click the image and it should open on a page resized for your monitor.
Three 28mm equivalent captures with the Canon SX20IS handheld. Stitched in PhotoShop Elements Panorama tool, processed for intensity and clarity in Lightroom. f8 @ 1/100th @ ISO 80. Landscape Mode.
1/10/2011: running away icy
I think this will be my last pic taken in 2010. Tomorrow we will move into the new year! This is Emmon’s Preserve again, in Kennebunkport Maine, with the little Baston Brook (river?) running down over ledges away from us. It was a difficult shot to frame as there was no clear line of site.
This is the wider view, which I also quite like, despite its busy foreground.
If you compare the two you will see that I had to clone out the little branch tip in the first shot.
Canon SX20IS at 85mm equivalent, f4 @ 1/125 @ ISO 80, Snow Mode, and at 28mm equivalent, f4 @ 1/250 @ ISO 80, Snow Mode.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity and clarity (see page link above).
1/9/2011: If dancing water froze
Happy Sunday!
I suppose there is no real surprise here…other than the fact that it is possible. This is what even the most rapidly flowing, swirling, jumping water coming down a little series of falls in Maine looks like when it freezes. It captures the motion in solid form. It turns the music of the rapids into intricate folds and fingers of ice. How? I will admit, I can not quite imagine it.
But then I don’t really need an explanation. It is enough to find it there on my walk…to see it for what it is…and to bring it home to share with you…to bear witness.
It is an instance of truth that must be seen to be believed, and that, once seen, is sufficient to itself.
It is Sunday, and you might be ahead of me with where this image is leading me. Because, of course, what I see and appreciate in this image shares an identity with what I see and most appreciate in the spirit. The essence of faith is that it is possible even when we can’t imagine how…but it is also truth apprehended, seen, touched, felt, experienced…that is sufficient to itself, beyond the need for explanations. Like dancing water frozen and yet in still in motion, truth is something we must experience, and that we can only bear witness to. With no spiritual camera to bring back the evidence to share, I have no choice but to become the dancing water, to let the frozen motion form within me, to let truth perceived shape my life into a living witness.
In that sense, what matters here is the taking of the image, and its sharing, not so much the image itself.
Canon SX20IS at 560mm equivalent, f5.7 @ 1/200th @ ISO 200. Snow Mode.
Processed for clarity and intensity in Lightroom.
7/23/2010
Fountain
A fountain detail from the MacArthur Plaza in Santa Ana. Late evening light in Southern California.
Canon SD4000IS Digital Elph at about 46mm equivalent field of view @ f3.5 @ 1/800th @ ISO 125. Programmed auto.
Some Recovery in Lightroom. A touch of Fill Light, Blackpoint just right, added Clarity and just a bit of Vibrance. Sharpen narrow edges preset.
From Zeiss Trip CA 2010.
3/23/2010
Balson River, Emmons Preserve, Kennebunkport ME
I have attempted to photograph this stream in every season over the past 12 years. It is on a little pocket preserve tucked in between the homes on two back roads…gifted to the Kennebunkport Conservation Trust some years ago, and developed just enough for easy access…once you know it is there. The stream, or river, depending, goes from a trickle at mid summer to a full raging torrent during the storms of spring and fall. Or it can be an icy cascade in winter, with every willow wand along the bank hung with ice bells. I have seen it in every light.
And it is always a bear to photograph. The range of light, from deep shadow to bright sun on the foaming water of the falls, from the incredible dark green of the moss in the shade, to the pure silver light reflected off leaves, is just way beyond any sensor’s ability. I even wrote a whole Point and Shoot Landscape piece on exposing for post-processing based on my trials here: the only way to come close to capturing the range is to expose so that both shadow and highlight detail can be restored in post-processing. Of course, that means that the images, out of camera, can look pretty strange.
So…with a new camera and all, I had to try again…or at least make a beginning in the process of learning how to use this camera to capture an image in Emmon’s Preserve…since no two cameras have the same range of possibility when it comes to that (or anything else).
All the shots taken that day were experiments. I found that with previous cameras you could not use exposure compensation to save the highlights. That left the shadows too dark, and post-processing added to much noise. Still, I know that photographically, exposure compensation is the right solution here, so I was trying what the Canon could do. This exposure was at –1 EV, and, with processing in Lightrroom, it is one of the most successful shots of the Balson that I have ever taken. The highlights and sunny bank areas are just within range (having applied some Recovery in Lightroom), and the shadows opened up well with just enough Fill Light not to produce much noise. Granted, it will get worse when the leaves come out and the shadows deepen…but for now, I am really liking this rendering. The dynamic range is very natural…both shadows and highlights are much as the eye would see them in real time: and that, ultimately, is my goal.
(By the way, I am not an advocate of the silky water school of stream photography. I have another P&S Landscape piece on that. I prefer to let the shutter freeze some of the water motion…since, in real time, I see something closer to the detail of frozen water, than I do to the silky blur. I find the patterns of swirl and bubble infinitely fascinating.)
Canon SX20IS at just under 60mm equivalent. F4 @ 1/200 @ ISO 80. Landscape preset. (Landscape preset, by the way, does better, somehow, for color balance than regular Program does on auto. It handled the open shade here just fine.)
In Lightroom, as mentioned, Recovery for highlights, Fill Light for shadows (but not much). Blackpoint just slightly right. Added Clarity and just a tiny amount of Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset.
From Around Home 2010.
1/23/2010
Coins in the Waterfall
This is an impulse I have never understood. Pool, fountain, or in this case the head of the artificial waterfall at the Palizzo in Vegas. The moving water here adds what is perhaps an extra dimension.
Sony DSC H50 at about 55mm equivalent. F2.8 @ 1/60 @ ISO 100. Programmed auto.
Blackpoint right in Lightroom. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset.
From Las Vegas 2010.